surlygreaser

i caught this shows pilot late one Saturday night by chance,on a whim i tuned in. it was a rather simple story about a group of young people cavorting about in skimpy bikinis in and around a boat marina/hotel/lounge. it followed there escapades involving love,sex,drugs,drinking and larceny. i admit i only tuned in to oggle the likes of 'denise richards','jeri ryan' and 'meredeth salanger' in various states of undress and ill say in that category it was'nt a complete letdown. the female scenery was delicious,especially ms. richards and ms. salanger,but the plot line was lukewarm and less than paper thin. to bad really,with more thought put into the plot line,it could have been a deliciously campy cross between 'baywatch' and 'miami vice'.

i saw this teen comedy at a drive-in double feature along with 'thank god its Friday',which had some of the same cast. lee Purcell as a snotty b**ch type,is devilishly sexy,as she was still a hot little fox,in the Nancy Allen vein. Didi conn plays the ugly duckling type,who becomes a swan,ala 'shes all that',she shows surprisingly,an incredible set of bazookies in a tight red gown during the prom scene,who would of thought that frenchie was such a sexpot?. john Friedrich,Tim matheson and Bruno Kirby,round out the cast of guy characters and 'the beach boys' mike love adds music. this movie also had the lovely actress 'sunny Johnson',who sadly in the early 80's would pass away quite young,she would go on to appear in 'national lampoon's animal house','the night the lights went out in Georgia' and 'flashdance'. i thought this movie was pretty good at the time and it obviously had a reliable cast,this movie should definitely be repackaged in a double DVD set along with 'shes all that',as they both have a lot in common.

i only remember watching this show because it had susan buckner in it,who i had see play 'patty simcox' in 'grease' a few years before and i thought she was incredibly sexy. i remember the show being extremely inane and in dyer need of better comedy writers and better plots,but that did'nt stop me from tuning every week for about a month or so,to oggle and drool over the sumptuous miss buckner in an array of skin tight jeans,skin tight tops,work boots and a hard hat lolling the shows worksite. i remember the show being about a crew of comical misfits causing there bosses furrowed brows and red faces over there shenanigans over the span of a half hour. but alas the show wasn't good enough to generate much more from me other than a passing yen for the buxom miss buckner. to bad though,she was really quite hot.

i saw this funny western only once when it came on TV when i was a mear eleven years old,but i was in love with the vivacious pamela sue martin who i'd seen in 'the posideon adventure' two years before and of course because of her i loved it then very much. as for now i'd say it was kinda corny in an 'alias smith and jones' kind of way,but harmless and fun just the same and of course who can deny a film with marjoe gortner its due. i wish it was on video so i could leer at the gorgeous ms. martin once again,but it is rare to find a 70's TV movie on video,let alone DVD. but for old time sake,i give it five stars. i hope this nostalgic rant helps somebody.

i love this movie for many reasons....but one of the major reasons,is it gives 2 character actors a chance to play opposite there usual bad guy/heavy personas. actor paul gleason,known primarily,as the asshole principal in 'the breakfast club' and the slithery badguy,clarence beeks,in the eddie murphy/dan ackroyd comedy 'trading places',plays one of the girls parents in the film 'there goes my baby',as a meloncholic tender father figure. whereas,actor j.e. freeman,better known as the homicidal homosexual hit-man,'the dane' in the coen brothers,'millers crossing' and the volatile dangerous,'marcelus santos'[sp?],in David lynch's 'wild at heart',played in 'there goes my baby',ricky scroeder's thoughtful compassionette working class father. p.s. to whoever said,that 'there goes my baby' was a 1965 song,they were wrong,it was a 1959 song by 'the drifters'. sincerely and without to much pomposity i hope,the surly greaser.

now I'm not sure when this episode played,i think it was at some point during its first several months or so,but in said episode,Chris Isaak over dubbed his vocals for a character named billy ray or some such thing in an episode about payola,murder & rock-a-billy music. Jim youngs,of'the wanderers' & 'footloose'fame,played the twanging' hic-upping'teen idol type,by the way,the actor is also actor john savage's brother of 'the deer hunter' fame and I'm pretty sure the Chris Isaak music was off his first two records,'silver tone' & 'Chris Isaak' respectively. I'm also pretty sure the other music,i.e. background music and such,was played by Joe Jackson & Todd Rundgren,being that this show was also from the makers of 'crime story' another series about the same kind of genre that was out about the same time and by the way,i thought both shows had a lot of style and a really 'retro deco neon drenched noirish 50's/early 60's dragnet look' that was really cool. "private eye" having a nu-wave 'rebel with out a cause' kind of feel,complete with a 'unshaven trench coat wearing cigarette smoking' hard drinking' gumshoe type and a 'black leather jacketed,blue jeans, white t-shirt wearing',engineer boot wearing,duck tailed,chopped black 50's hotrod mercury driving',shotgun & switchblade toting',greasey juvenile delinquent' type....it fit the 86/87 stray cats video MTV thing that was popular then for a brief time. "crime story" of course was chalk full of big late 50's/early 60's Oldsmobile's,Cadillac's,Lincoln's,Buick's,Pontiac's,Desoto's,Chrysler crown imperial's and other assorted 'enormously finned automobiles as big as Texas,tough talking' detectives spouting' mickey spillaneisms every other word too usually trembling little wise guy punk types and you couldn't tell who the good guys or the bad guys were,cause they all dressed in black,right down to the tench coats and pork pie hats,until a gun fight broke out that is and a handful of guys would go down in a hail of gunfire and since the good guys always won,ala 'dragnet' & 'highway patrol',you'de know that the bad guys were the punks on the ground all bullet riddled, kinda cool,huh?